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Frozen
Frozen is an American 3D computer animated musical fantasy comedy-drama film produced by Walt Disney Animation Studios and distributed by Walt Disney Pictures.Disneyland Resort Debuts "World of Color – Winter Dreams," a Merry New Spectacular for 2013 Holiday Season It is the 53rd animated feature in the Walt Disney Animated Classics series. It is loosely inspired by Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tale The Snow Queen. It is the 53rd animated feature in the Walt Disney Animated Classics series. It also features the 12th and 13th members of the Disney Princess line-up, Anna and Elsa. The film features the voices of Kristen Bell as Anna and Idina Menzel as Elsa, in both speaking and singing roles, along with Jonathan Groff playing the role of mountain man Kristoff, Josh Gad as Olaf the Snowman and Santino Fontana as Prince Hans of the Southern Isles. The film underwent several story treatments for several years, before being commissioned in 2011, with a screenplay written by Jennifer Lee, and both Chris Buck and Lee serving as directors. Christophe Beck, who had worked on Disney's award-winning short Paperman, was hired to compose the film's orchestral score, while husband-and-wife songwriting team Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez penned the songs. Frozen premiered at the El Capitan Theatre on November 19, 2013,Disney's "Frozen" Premiere Turns L.A. Into a Winter Wonderland and went into general release on November 27. Not accounting for inflation, the film is the highest-grossing animated film of all time and the sixth highest-grossing film of all time, having so far grossed nearly $1.17 billion in worldwide box office revenue, $400 million of which in the United States and Canada.Box Office Milestone: 'Frozen' Becomes No. 1 Animated Film of All Time It was met with widespread critical acclaim, and several film critics considered it to be the best Disney animated musical since the studio's renaissance era.Boys Don’t Run Away From These PrincessesIs "Frozen" a New, Bona Fide Disney Classic? The film won two Academy Awards for Best Animated Feature and Best Original Song ("Let It Go"), the Golden Globe Award for Best Animated Feature Film,Golden Globes 2014: And the winners are... the BAFTA Award for Best Animated Film, five Annie Awards (including Best Animated Feature), and two Critics' Choice Awards for Best Animated Feature and Best Original Song ("Let It Go"). Plot The film begins with several ice harvesters collecting ice out in the cold regions of the land ("Frozen Heart"). Among them is an 8-year-old boy named Kristoff with his reindeer calf Sven. After collecting enough ice, the harvesters depart to the kingdom of Arendelle late at night. At the same time, 5-year-old Princess Anna (Livvy Stubenrauch) wakes her elder 8-year-old sister Princess Elsa (Eva Bella) to play. Elsa playfully brushed her sister off until it was suggested they build a snowman, to which Elsa delightfully agrees. The sisters head into the castle's throne room and create a winter field of snow using Elsa's snow magic, enjoying their time with plenty of merriment. They build a snowman, who Elsa names Olaf, that likes warm hugs. When Elsa, however, hits Anna with her powers in an attempt to save her little sister from falling, the royal family journeys to the legendary Valley of the Living Rock to seek the help of trolls who remove the magic from Anna along with her memory of her sister's magic ability. Elsa is then ostracized from everyone, including Anna, in order to protect her from the world until she can learn to control her powers, leaving both sisters distraught and lonely. Their despair only escalates when their parents die 10 years later, after they go on a ship to sail somewhere when a storm erupts with a wave capsizing the ship. Three years later, it is the day of Elsa's (Idina Menzel) coronation ceremony. Dignitaries from around the world are coming to visit, including the Duke of Weselton (Alan Tudyk) who wants to run Arendelle's profits dry. Nobody is more excited than Anna (Kristen Bell), as they are finally opening the gates to the kingdom. She is happy to see other people, and hopes for the possibility of meeting that special someone, but Elsa is still concerned about trying to control her powers ("For the First Time in Forever"). As she strolls out onto the streets, she bumps into a horse who happens to belong to the charming and handsome Prince Hans (Santino Fontana) of the Southern Isles. Though angered at first by the clumsiness of the stranger, Anna is attracted by Hans's appearance and looks once she lays his eyes on him. The coronation goes off without a hitch despite Elsa's fears, and she even takes time to connect with her sister at the party. Anna's interaction with her sister brings quite the delightful feeling to the princess, flustered at first, as well as seeing Elsa so happy instead of serious and preserved boosts Anna's confidence, prompting her to continue on with the conversation. They're interrupted afterwards by their steward Kai introducing the snide Duke of Weselton, who offers Elsa her first dance as queen. Elsa politely declines the offer but instead playfully volunteers Anna, much to the Duke's delight nonetheless, and the two head off into a comical dance scene. Elsa couldn't hold back a chuckle in during which she sees Anna innocently flustered by the Duke's over-the-top dancing skills. This causes Anna to feel just as whimsical about the entire matter, for seeing Elsa in such a state hasn't been a sight for years. Anna returns by Elsa's side afterwards, commenting on how well things have been going through the day, and expresses her wishes to have things the way they were that night all the time. Elsa's smile unfortunately fades away and she reluctantly denies Anna's wishes all at once, though fails to explain why so. Anna and Hans then sneak off to spend the evening together, quickly realizing the mutual attraction between them. The romantic dance eventually leads to an entire date ("Love is an Open Door"), with the entire night of the young couple being spent bonding. Hans, during their time together, learns of Anna's longing of having someone special in her life, with her sister apparently developing a dislike of being around her by suddenly shutting Anna out one day when they were kids. Hans openly relates to this, only furthering Anna's connection with him. Hans then promises to never shut Anna out unlike Elsa, much to the princess' absolute joy. By the end of their tour throughout the kingdom, Hans proposes right on the spot to which Anna immediately accepts. The two head back the ballroom, where Anna asks for Elsa's blessing on the marriage. Elsa's baffled by the shocking news, but Anna and Hans couldn't appear more excited going on to ramble about the wedding arrangements. Elsa ceases the sudden rambling by denying the marriage, much to Anna's heartbreak. The queen asks to speak to Anna alone in private, likely to finally confess her abilities and why it's not wise to marry a total stranger without causing a scene that would surely get her true magical nature exposed, but the younger princess refuses any private conversation, stating whatever Elsa has to say can be said to both her and Hans. Elsa, becoming frustrated, outright forbids Anna of marrying someone she just met, indirectly telling the princess she knows nothing about true love. This causes Anna to hiss back, telling Elsa all she knows is how to shut people out. Although Elsa is visibly hurt by this, she continues to refuse with the argument only worsening when she orders the guards to end the party and close the gates. Elsa refuses to grant her blessing on the marriage, setting off an argument between the sisters and culminating in Elsa's abilities being exposed to the party guests. Panicking, Elsa flees with Anna in hot pursuit. As she becomes more stressed and panicked, the weather starts turning colder: snow begins to fall and Elsa races across the fjord, freezing it with each step but turning the whole body of water into ice and trapping all the ships before spreading throughout the rest of the kingdom. Having fail to retrieve her, Anna and Hans return to the castle courtyard where the guests have gathered. The Duke of Weselton begins to panic as it eerily begins snowing, declaring they must take action and put an end to Elsa's curse. Anna, however, refuses and volunteers to seek out Elsa herself and make things right, feeling that it's her fault for pushing her. With Hans being left in charge of the kingdom, Anna heads off on her horse to begin her search for her sister. Elsa makes it to the North Mountain where she laments her failure at keeping the powers contained but quickly becomes more and more at ease and relaxed, free to use her powers as she pleases (singing the song "Let It Go", creating a snowman (the same one she and Anna built when they were young), an ice castle and ice dress). While searching for Elsa, Anna loses her horse in the process. She travels on foot until nightfall, where she finds herself at Wandering Oaken's Trading Post and Sauna. She asks the shop owner Oaken (Chris Williams) for winter boots and dresses. She makes small talk with him, then meets Kristoff (Jonathan Groff). Anna convinces Kristoff to take her to the North Mountain, where the source of the winter is coming from. They get attacked by wolves on their journey, causing Kristoff to lose his sled. They continue on foot, and meet Olaf (Josh Gad), the snowman Elsa created, who seems to be alive. Olaf shares his dreams of experiencing summer ("In Summer"), and agrees to lead them to Elsa's hideout. The gang make it to Elsa's castle, where Anna and Elsa reunite. While both are happy to see each other, Elsa still harbors fears of wounding Anna once again. Despite Anna's promising to stand by her sister and help her, Elsa only grows more agitated and nervous resulting in her magic flaring. This time, it strikes Anna in the heart. Elsa, in desperation to get her sister to safety, creates a giant snow creature (that Olaf calls "Marshmallow") to throw them out. As revenge, Anna balls up a snowball and throws it at the giant beast. Though it left literally no damage whatsoever, the lack of respect was enough to infuriate Marshmallow and cause him to chase Anna, Kristoff and Olaf down the Northern Mountain and most likely eliminate them. Marshmallow manages to corner them at the edge of a cliff, though Kristoff immediately begins digging a snow anchor by using a rope to safely guide himself and Anna down the mountain to safety. Marshmallow, however, catches up to them, though Olaf tries to stop him. Marshmallow, annoyed, kicks Olaf over the cliff, and continues his chase for Anna and Kristoff. He pulls them up to his face by the rope, and orders them once more to never return. Just after, Anna grabs Kristoff's knife and cuts the rope. This sends the duo plummeting down, though they survive. With his mission to drive them away complete, Marshmallow returns to the ice palace. After they escaped the snow monster, Kristoff notices that Anna's hair is turning white. He takes them to seek help, to which he leads Anna (who is slowly freezing) to the trolls. A mix-up occurs, and the trolls insist Anna and Kristoff to get married ("Fixer Upper"). Anna collapses before the two can be wed by Gothi the Troll Priest, and Grand Pabbie appears. According to him, only an act of true love can thaw a frozen heart or else Anna will freeze solid. Kristoff races back to Arendelle to get Anna to Hans, believing true love's kiss will save her. Meanwhile, Hans, on a search for Anna after her horse returns to the kingdom without her, and the guards find the ice castle. The moment they come close enough, Marshmallow reveals himself from the form of snowy boulders in case more unwanted guests were to arrive jumps right into battle. The soldiers immediately attack the beast with their arrows, infuriating Marshmallow and causing his ultimate form to be unleashed. Marshmallow is able to hold most of the guards off. Hans, however, proves to be a fierce warrior himself, avoiding each of Marshmallow's attacks and eventually using his sword to slice the snow monster's leg off and cause him to lose balance and begin tumbling over to a large gorge. With Marshmallow wounded, Hans begins heading inside Elsa's castle. Marshmallow, however, doesn't give up, giving one last swing in attempt to drag Hans down with him. Marshmallow unfortunately fails plummets down into the chasm below, apparently to his death. While Hans battles Marshmallow, the Duke's men attack Elsa. She fights back, nearly killing them both much to her own horror. Just as Elsa was about to murder the two, Hans appears and stops her to say not to prove she's the monster they believe she is. Elsa settles down a bit at Hans' words, realizing the demon she was becoming and halts her magic. One of the soldiers, however, aims his arrow at Elsa, still following the Duke's orders. Hans intervenes just as the soldier is about to shoot her,, causing the arrow to cut through Elsa's chandelier which then plummets towards the ground. Elsa tries to escape the collision, but is knocked out in the process. Hans and the soldiers then capture her and head back to the kingdom. She wakes up shackled in a cell back in Arendelle Castle. Hans pleads with her to undo the winter, but Elsa replies that she can't due to the fact that she is unable to control her powers. Anna is returned to Hans, freezing more and more cold and sick by the minute. She tells Hans everything that has happened and hopes he will kiss her and break the curse. But he instead cruelly reveals that he had been pretending to love her the whole time, as part of a fiendish plan to seize control of Arendelle's throne, because he is the youngest of thirteen brothers and will never reach the throne in his own kingdom. Anna tries to stop him, but she is far too weak. He puts the fire out to prevent Anna from getting any heat and warmth, and leaves Anna to freeze to death. Then he tells the Duke and the kingdom's officials what Anna told him, in addition of lying that he was too late to save her. He also pretends to grieve for her, and sentences Elsa to death as part of his plan. Elsa escapes from prison when she learns Hans' means to have her executed for treason, and heads out into the blizzard on the fjord. Meanwhile, Anna's curse becomes stronger with her death process nearly complete. When Olaf arrives, he finds Anna in the library on the ground and quickly dying. Olaf comes to Anna's rescue, and starts a fire to keep the princess warm. Olaf then asks what happened with the true love's kiss from Hans, to which Anna reveals his treachery and Hans never loved her. Fearing he'll melt, Anna tells Olaf to leave. Not wanting to abandon his friend, the snowman stays by her side and nearly melts during this time. Anna brokenheartedly tells Olaf that she doesn't even know what love is anymore. Olaf replies by telling Anna that love is putting someone else before yourself, using Kristoff as an example. This reveals Kristoff's true feelings to Anna, much to the princess' surprise. Suddenly, the library's window bursts open due to the strong winter winds. Olaf rushes to close it, but he then notices Kristoff and Sven rushing back to the castle. Knowing Kristoff is truly the one that loves Anna, the two try to head out to meet him. Olaf then aids the dying princess out of the castle and into the fjords. The two then travel together out on the fjord to find him, where he is racing back to the kingdom. With a sword at hand, Hans is prepared to slay the queen. Hans eventually stumbles upon her, telling her that she can't escape all the horrible things she's already done. Elsa pleads for mercy, still believing Hans to be a benevolent prince, and asks him to take care of her sister for her. Hans cuts Elsa off, and tells her that Anna is dead because of her. Devastated by the horrific news, Elsa breaks down in tears. In Elsa's despair, the storm immediately stops. This then gives Kristoff and Anna the chance to reach each other. But at that moment, Anna hears a sword being drawn a short distance away. In horror, Anna sees that Hans is about to kill her sister. Anna must choose to save herself or her sister, which is only seconds away. After one last look at Kristoff, she makes her decision to save Elsa and throw herself between Elsa and Hans; she freezes solid just as Hans' sword hits her instead of Elsa, also causing Hans to be brutally knocked out unconscious. Elsa, after a few moments of despair, sees that her sister has thawed and come back to life because she sacrificed herself to save her sister, constituting an act of true love which Olaf first realizes. Elsa realizes that love is the key to controlling her powers, and thaws the kingdom. Olaf, overjoyed, smiles with glee, but quickly melts due to the summer heat. Elsa restores him and gives him a small flurry cloud to hover over his body and keep him completely cool, finally allowing the snowman to live his dream of experiencing summer and all its wonders. When Hans awakens several moments later, he finds Arendelle thawed and peace restored. When Kristoff attempted to confront Hans for trying to kill the two sisters, Elsa seems touched by Kristoff's protectiveness over her and Anna. Anna, however, decides to confront him instead. Anna then approaches the manipulative prince, which the sight of Anna alive and well confuses Hans and prompts him to ask how she'd survive the frozen heart curse. Eventually, Anna berates Hans by telling him he's the only one around here with the frozen heart and turns her back at him much to Hans' disbelief. Out of fury, the princess turns around and punches him in the face off the ship they were aboard a few seconds later. Anna and Elsa then hug, with their friendship restored stronger than ever. As the sisters hug, Anna looks lovingly towards Kristoff. Exposed as the manipulating liar he is, Hans is then arrested and deported back to his own kingdom to face punishment from his 12 older brothers for his deeds. Elsa additionally cuts off all trade with Weselton. The Duke tries to claim that he was innocent and a victim of fear. But to no avail, he and his thugs are sent back to Weselton. He is then heard insisting that the town is not named "Weasel Town" after being mispronounced once again, though purposely by Kai to annoy him. Anna gives Kristoff a new sled sometime later, and reveals that Elsa has named him the Official Ice Master for the kingdom and so he can be with Anna. The two then finally share a kiss. Elsa creates an ice rink in one of the castle courtyards and promises to never shut the castle gates again, while gifting Anna with a pair of ice skates (made out of ice). Anna is delighted, but tells Elsa she can't skate. Elsa helps her, who is later joined by Olaf. The movie ends with everyone in Arendelle skating, making the most of Elsa's ice rink. It is revealed after the credits that Marshmallow had survived along with a new made leg. He is seen limping back into the castle, where all he finds is Elsa's old crown. The monster looks around for a moment, and smiles. Then, pleasing his inner princess, Marshmallow happily crowns himself ruler of the castle while going back to his normal and peaceful form smiling and letting out a happy sigh, happily continuing his life in the North Mountains. Voice cast Development Origins In 1943, Walt Disney and Samuel Goldwyn had considered the possibility of collaborating to produce a biography film of author and poet Hans Christian Andersen, where Goldwyn's studio would shoot the live-action sequences of Andersen's life and Disney would create the animated sequences. The animated sequences were to include stories of Andersen's works, such as The Little Mermaid, The Little Match Girl, The Steadfast Tin Soldier, The Snow Queen, Thumbelina, The Ugly Duckling, The Red Shoes and The Emperor's New Clothes. Disney and his animators encountered difficulty with The Snow Queen, as they could not find a way to adapt and relate the Snow Queen character to modern audiences. Even as far back as the 1940s, Disney's animation department saw great cinematic possibilities with the source material, but the Snow Queen character proved to be too problematic. This, among other things, led to the cancellation of the Disney-Goldwyn project. Goldwyn went on to produce his own live-action film version in 1952, entitled Hans Christian Andersen, with Danny Kaye as Andersen, Charles Vidor directing, Moss Hart writing, and Frank Loesser penning the songs. All of Andersen's fairy tales were, instead, told in song and ballet in live-action, like the rest of the film. It went on to receive six Academy Award nominations the following year. Back at Disney, The Snow Queen, along with other Andersen fairy tales (including The Little Mermaid), were shelved.Countdown to Disney "Frozen" : How one simple suggestion broke the ice on the "Snow Queen"'s decades-long story problems Later efforts In the late 1990s, Walt Disney Feature Animation started on their own adaptation of The Snow Queen after the tremendous success of their recent films, but the project was scrapped completely in late 2002, when Glen Keane quit the project.Disney's "Frozen", Formerly "The Snow Queen", Will Be CG Rather Than Hand-Drawn Even before then, Harvey Fierstein pitched his version of the story to the Disney executives, but was turned down. Paul and Gaëtan Brizzi, Dick Zondag and Dave Goetz reportedly all had their try on it, but failed. Disney shelved the project again. Michael Eisner, then-CEO and chairman of The Walt Disney Company, offered his support to the project and suggested doing it with John Lasseter at Pixar Animation Studios, when the studios would get their contracts renewed. The next attempt started in September 2008, after Chris Buck pitched several ideas to Lasseter (who by then had also become Chief Creative Officer of Disney Animation), one of which was The Snow Queen.The Art of Frozen It turned out Lasseter had been interested in The Snow Queen for a long time; back when Pixar was working with Disney on Toy Story in the 1990s, he saw and was "blown away" by some of the preproduction art from Disney's prior attempts. Development began under the title Anna and the Snow Queen, which was planned to be traditionally animated.Josh Gad Talks FROZEN, His History with the Project, the Songs, the Status of TRIPLETS, Playing Sam Kinison, and More By early 2010, the project entered development hell once again, when the studio failed to find a way to make the story and the Snow Queen character work.Disney restyles "Rapunzel" to appeal to boysExclusive: The Lion King To Go 3D Revitalization On December 22, 2011, following the success of Tangled, Disney announced a new title for the film, Frozen, and a release date of November 27, 2013.Walt Disney Animation Gives "The Snow Queen" New Life, Retitled "Frozen" – But Will It Be Hand Drawn? A month later, it was confirmed that the film would be a computer-animated feature in stereoscopic 3D, instead of the originally intended hand-drawn animation. On March 5, 2012, it was announced that Chris Buck would be directing, with John Lasseter and Peter Del Vecho producing.Kristen Bell Set to Star in Stage Adaptation "Some Girls", Animated Feature "Frozen" (Exclusive) After Disney decided to advance The Snow Queen into development again, one of the main challenges Buck and Del Vecho faced was the character of the Snow Queen, who was then a villain in their drafts. The studio has a tradition of screening animated films in development every twelve weeks, then holding lengthy "notes sessions" in which its directors and screenwriters from different projects provide extensive "notes" on each other's work.Directors Chris Buck and Jennifer Lee Talk 'Frozen'Oscars 2014: 'Frozen's' Jennifer Lee on being a female directorMichael, Peter, Chris and Jennifer Talk Frozen and It's Success Buck and Del Vecho presented their storyboards to Lasseter, and the entire production team adjourned to a conference to hear Lasseter's thoughts on the project. Art director Michael Giaimo later acknowledged Lasseter as the "game changer" of the film: "I remember John saying that the latest version of The Snow Queen story that Chris Buck and his team had come up with was fun, very light-hearted. But the characters didn't resonate. They aren't multi-faceted. Which is why John felt that audiences wouldn't really be able to connect with them." The production team then addressed the film's problems, drafting several different variations on The Snow Queen story until the characters and story felt relevant. At that stage, the first major breakthrough was the decision to rewrite the film's protagonist, Anna (who was based on the Gerda character from The Snow Queen), as the younger sibling of Elsa, thereby effectively establishing a family dynamic between the characters.Unfreezing "Frozen": The making of the newest fairy tale in 3D by Disney To fully explore the unique dynamics of the kind of relationship that would now become the core of the film's plot, Disney Animation convened a "Sister Summit", at which women from all over Disney Animation who grew up with sisters were asked to discuss their relationships with their sisters. Writing In March 2012, Jennifer Lee, one of the screenwriters of Wreck-It Ralph, was brought in as the film's screenwriter.How "Frozen" Director Jennifer Lee Reinvented The Story Of The Snow Queen Lee later explained that as Wreck-It Ralph was wrapping up, she was giving notes on other projects, and "we kind of really connected with what we were thinking."Episode 128: Frozen with Jennifer Lee — Transcript According to Lee, several core concepts were already in place from Buck and Del Vecho's early work, such as the film's "frozen heart" hook: "That was a concept and the phrase ... an act of true love will thaw a frozen heart." They already knew the ending involved true love in the sense of the emotional bond between siblings, not romance, in that "Anna was going to save Elsa. We didn’t know how or why." Lee said Edwin Catmull, president of Disney Animation, told her early on about the film's ending: "First and foremost, no matter what you have to do to the story, do it. But you have to earn that ending. If you do, it will be great. If you don't, it will suck." Lee revealed how the original plot differed sharply from the final version: in the first act, Elsa, the villainous Snow Queen, deliberately struck Anna in the heart with her freezing powers; then "the whole second act was about Anna trying to get to Hans and to kiss him and then Elsa trying to stop her". Buck revealed that the original plot attempted to make Anna sympathetic by focusing on her frustration as being perceived as the "spare" in relation to the "heir," Elsa.A spoiler-y, slightly nerdy interview about Disney's Frozen The original plot also had different pacing, in that it was "much more of an action adventure" than a musical or a comedy. One major breakthrough was the composition of the song "Let It Go" by songwriters Lopez and Anderson-Lopez, which forced the production team to reconceptualize and rewrite Elsa as a far more complex, vulnerable, and sympathetic character. In The Daily Telegraph's words, instead of the villain envisioned by the producers, the songwriters saw Elsa as "a scared girl struggling to control and come to terms with her gift."Frozen: inside Disney's billion-dollar social media hit Lee recalled: "Bobby and Kristen said they were walking in Prospect Park and they just started talking about what would it feel like be Elsa. Forget villain. Just what it would feel like. And this concept of letting out who she is, that she's kept to herself for so long, and she's alone and free, but then the [sic] sadness of the fact that the last moment is she's alone. It’s not a perfect thing, but it's powerful." Del Vecho explained that "Let It Go" changed Elsa into a person "ruled by fear and Anna was ruled by her own love of other people and her own drive," which in turn caused Lee to "rewrite the first act and then that rippled through the entire movie. So that was when we really found the movie and who these characters were." Another major breakthrough was developing the plot twist that Prince Hans would be revealed as the film's true villain only near the end. Hans was not even in the earliest drafts, then at first was not a villain, and after becoming one, was revealed to be evil much earlier in the plot. Del Vecho said, "We realized what was most important was if we were going to make the ending so surprising, you had to believe at one point that Hans was the answer ... when he's not the answer, it's Kristoff .... If you can get the audience to leap ahead and think they have figured it out, you can surprise them by turning it the other way." Lee acknowledged that Hans was written as "sociopathic" and "twisted" throughout the final version. For example, Hans mirrors the behavior of the other characters: "He mirrors Anna and he’s goofy with her ... The Duke Weselton is a jerk, so he’s a jerk back. And with Elsa he's a hero." It was difficult to lay the foundation for Anna's belated turn to Kristoff without also making Hans' betrayal of Anna too predictable, in that the audience had to "feel ... her feeling something but not quite understanding it ... Because the minute it is understood, it deflated." To construct Anna and Elsa's relationship as sisters, Lee found inspiration in her own relationship with her older sister.Is it her time to shine? Lee said her older sister was "a big inspiration for Elsa", called her "my Elsa" in an op-ed in the Los Angeles Times, and walked the red carpet with her at the 86th Academy Awards. Lee explained, "having to ... lose each other and then rediscover each other as adults, that was a big part of my life." Along the way, the production team went through drafts where the first act included far more detail than what ended up in the final version, such as a troll with a Brooklyn accent who would have explained the backstory behind Elsa's magical powers, and a regent for whom Lee was hoping to cast comedian Louis C.K. After all those details were thoroughly "over-analyzed", they were excised because they amounted to a "much more complex story than really we felt like we could fit in this 90-minute film." As Del Vecho put it, "the more we tried to explain things at the beginning, the more complicated it got."The Real-Life Ice Hotel That Inspired Disney’s ‘Frozen’ The production team also turned Olaf from Elsa's obnoxious sidekick into Anna's comically innocent sidekick. Lee's initial response to the original "mean" version of Olaf had been, "Kill the f-ing snowman", and she found Olaf by far "the hardest character to deal with." Production Actress Kristen Bell was cast as the voice of Anna on March 5, 2012. Lee admitted that Bell's casting selection was influenced after the filmmakers listened to a series of vocal tracks Bell had recorded when she was young, where the actress performed several songs from The Little Mermaid, including "Part of Your World".Kristen Bell: "Frozen" character is "awkward", "Veronica Mars" footage "looks radical" Bell completed her recording sessions while she was pregnant, and subsequently re-recorded some of her character's lines after her pregnancy, as her voice had deepened.Low-key bride Kristen Bell As for her approach to the role of Anna, Bell enthused that she had "dreamed of being in a Disney animated film" since she was four years old, saying, "I always loved Disney animation, but there was something about the females that was unattainable to me. Their posture was too good and they were too well-spoken, and I feel like I really made this girl much more relatable and weirder and scrappier and more excitable and awkward. I'm really proud of that."Kristen Bell: "Frozen" Is "The Kind Of Movie I Wanted To See As A Kid" Idina Menzel, a Broadway veteran, was cast as Elsa. Menzel had formerly auditioned for Tangled, but didn't get the part. However, Tangled's casting director Jamie Sparer Roberts preserved a recording of Menzel's performance on her iPhone, and on the basis of that, asked her to audition along with Bell for Frozen.Tangled - Secret Phone Recording Helped Idina Menzel Land New Disney Role Before they were officially cast, Menzel and Bell deeply impressed the directors at an early table read; after reading the entire script out loud, they sang "Wind Beneath My Wings" together as a duet, since no music had been composed yet. Bell had suggested that idea when she visited Menzel at her California home to prepare together for the table read.Mania Interview: Idina Menzel Lee later said, "They sung it like sisters and what you mean to me, and there wasn’t a dry eye in the house after they sang." Between December 2012 and June 2013, the casting of additional roles was announced, including Jonathan Groff as Kristoff, Alan Tudyk as the Duke of Weselton, Santino Fontana as Prince Hans, and Josh Gad as Olaf. Following Lee's extensive involvement in Frozen's development process and her close work with director Buck and songwriters Lopez and Anderson-Lopez, studio heads Lasseter and Catmull promoted her to co-director of the film alongside Buck in August 2012.Chris Buck and Jennifer Lee interview: on making Frozen Her promotion was officially announced on November 29, 2012,Jennifer Lee to co-direct Disney Animated Film "Frozen" making Lee the first woman to direct a full-length animated motion picture produced by Walt Disney Animation Studios. She primarily worked on story while Buck focused on animation. Lee later stated that she was "really moved by a lot of what Chris had done" and that they "shared a vision" of the story, having "very similar sensibilities". According to Del Vecho, in late February 2013, it became clear that the film still "wasn't working", which necessitated further rewriting of scenes and songs from February through June 2013.Frozen Producer Heads to the OscarsDisney is reanimated with 'Frozen,' 'Big Hero 6' He explained, "we rewrote songs, we took out characters and changed everything, and suddenly the movie gelled. But that was close. In hindsight, piece of cake, but during, it was a big struggle." In June 2013, Disney conducted test screenings of the half-completed film with two audiences (one made up of families and the other made up of adults) in Phoenix, Arizona, at which Lasseter and Catmull were personally present.On the Job With Jennifer Lee, Director of Frozen Lee recalled that it was the moment when they realized they "had something, because the reaction was huge." Catmull, who had instructed Lee at the outset to "earn the ending," told her afterwards, "you did it". Animation Similar to Tangled, Frozen employed a unique artistic style by blending features of both computer-generated imagery (CGI) and traditional hand-drawn animation together."Frozen" Review From the beginning, Buck knew Giaimo was the best candidate to develop the style he had in mind, which would draw from the best Disney hand-drawn classics of the 1950s, and persuaded him to come back to Disney to serve as the film's art director. Buck, Lasseter, and Giaimo were all old friends who had attended CalArts together. To create the film's look, Giaimo began pre-production research by reading extensively about the entire region of Scandinavia and visiting the Danish-themed city of Solvang near Los Angeles, but eventually zeroed in on Norway in particular because "80 percent" of the visuals that appealed to him were from Norway.Emanuel Levy, "Frozen: Setting and Visual Look", Emanuel Levy Cinema 24/7, 26 December 2013. Disney eventually sponsored three research field trips.The story behind the story of Frozen Animators and special effects specialists were dispatched to Jackson Hole, Wyoming to experience walking, running, and falling in deep snow in a variety of types of attire, including long skirts (which both female and male personnel tried on);Oscar Week: Frozen’s Art of Animation while lighting and arts teams visited an Ice Hotel in Quebec City, Quebec to study how light reflects and refracts on snow and ice. Finally, Giaimo and several artists traveled to Norway to draw inspiration from its mountains, fjords, architecture, and culture.Snowed Under: Chris Buck talks about Frozen "We had a very short time schedule for this film, so our main focus was really to get the story right but we knew that John Lasseter is keen on truth in the material and creating a believable world, and again that doesn't mean it's a realistic world – but a believable one. It was important to see the scope and scale of Norway, and important for our animators to know what it's like," Del Vecho said.Disney Present Footage from Their Forthcoming Picture Frozen – Report "There is a real feeling of Lawrence of Arabia scope and scale to this," he finished. During 2012, while Giaimo and the animators and artists conducted preparatory research and developed the film's overall look, the production team was still struggling to develop a compelling script, as explained above. That problem was not adequately solved until November 2012, and the script would later require even more significant revisions after that point. As a result, the single "most daunting" challenge facing the animation team was a short schedule of less than 12 months to turn Lee's still-evolving shooting script into an actual film. Of course, other films like Toy Story 2 had been successfully completed on even shorter schedules, but a short schedule necessarily meant "late nights, overtime, and stress." Lee estimated the total size of the entire team on Frozen to be around 600 to 650 people, "including around 70 lighting people, 70-plus animators," and 15 to 20 storyboard artists.UNH degree played a part in Oscar-winning movie Del Vecho explained how the film's animation team was organized: "On this movie we do have character leads, supervising animators on specific characters. The animators themselves may work on multiple characters but it's always under one lead. I think it was different on Tangled, for example, but we chose to do it this way as we wanted one person to fully understand and develop their own character and then be able to impart that to the crew. Hyrum Osmond, the animator on Olaf, is quiet but he has a funny, wacky personality so we knew he'd bring a lot of comedy to it; Anna's animator, Becky Bresee, it's her first time leading a character and we wanted her to lead Anna."Immersed in Movies: First Look: Designing the Winter Wonderland of "Frozen" Acting coach Warner Loughlin was brought in to help the film's animators understand the characters they were creating. In order to get the general feeling of each scene, some animators did their own acting. "I actually film myself acting the scene out, which I find very helpful," said animation supervisor Rebecca Wilson Bresee. This helped her discover elements that made the scene feel real and believable. Elsa's supervising animator was Wayne Unten, who asked for that role because he was fascinated by the complexity of the character.Animators bask in glow of 'Frozen's' box-office and Oscar success Unten carefully developed Elsa's facial expressions in order to bring out her fear as contrasted against Anna's fearlessness. He also studied video from Menzel's recording sessions and animated Elsa's breathing to match Menzel's breathing. Regarding the look and nature of the film's cinematograph, Giaimo was greatly influenced by Jack Cardiff's work in Black Narcissus. According to him, it lent a hyper-reality to the film: "Because this is a movie with such scale and we have the Norwegian fjords to draw from, I really wanted to explore the depth. From a design perspective, since I was stressing the horizontal and vertical aspects, and what the fjords provide, it was perfect. We encased the sibling story in scale." Ted D. McCord's work in The Sound of Music was another major influence for Giaimo. It was also Giaimo's idea that Frozen should be filmed in the CinemaScope aspect ratio, which was approved by Lasseter. Giaimo also wanted to ensure that Norway's fjords, architecture and rosemaling folk art, were critical factors in designing the environment of Arendelle. Giaimo, whose background is in traditional animation, said that the art design environment represents a unity of character and environment and that he originally wanted to incorporate saturated colors, which is typically ill-advised in computer animation. For further authenticity, a live reindeer was brought into the studio for animators to study its movements and mannerisms for the character Sven.Jennifer Lee: Disney's New Animation QueenThe Animation of Disney's 'Frozen': Striving to Capture the PerformanceDisney’s FROZEN Press Day at Walt Disney Animation Studios #DisneyFrozen #DisneyFrozenEvent7 Things You Didn't Know About 'Frozen' Another important issue Giaimo insisted on addressing was costumes, in that he "knew from the start" it would be a "costume film." To realize that vision, he brought in character designer Jean Gillmore to act as a dedicated "costume designer".Costume Design in Animation - Disney's Frozen While traditional animation simply integrates costume design with character design and treats clothing as merely part of the characters, computer-generated animation regards costume as almost a separate entity with its own properties and behaviors—and Frozen required a level of as-yet untried detail, down to minutia like fabrics, buttons, trim, and stitching. Gillmore explained that her "general approach was to meld the historic silhouettes of 1840 Western Europe (give or take), with the shapes and garment relationships and details of folk costume in early Norway, circa 19th century." This meant using primarily wool fabric with accents of velvet, linen, and silk. During production, Giaimo and Gillmore "ran around" supplying various departments with real-world samples to use as references; they were able to draw upon both the studio's own in-house library of fabric samples as well as the resources of Disney Parks' costume division in Fullerton, California. The film's "look development artists" (the Disney job title for texture artists) created the digitally painted simulation of the appearance of surfaces, while other departments dealt with movement, rigging and weight, thickness and lighting of textile animation. During production, the film's English title was changed from The Snow Queen to Frozen, a decision that drew comparisons to another Disney film, Tangled. Peter Del Vecho explained that "the title Frozen came up independently of the title Tangled. It's because, to us, it represents the movie. Frozen plays on the level of ice and snow but also the frozen relationship, the frozen heart that has to be thawed. We don't think of comparisons between Tangled and Frozen, though." He also mentioned that the film will still retain its original title, The Snow Queen, in some countries: "because that just resonated stronger in some countries than Frozen. Maybe there's a richness to The Snow Queen in the country's heritage and they just wanted to emphasize that." Technology development The studio also developed several new tools to generate realistic and believable shots, particularly the heavy and deep snow and its interactions with the characters. Disney wanted an "all-encompassing" and organic tool to provide snow effects but not require switching between different methods.The tech of Disney's Frozen and Get a Horse! As noted above, several Disney artists and special effects personnel traveled to Wyoming to experience walking through deep snow. Dr. Kenneth Libbrecht, a professor from the California Institute of Technology, was invited to give lectures to the effects group on how snow and ice form, and why snowflakes are unique. Using this knowledge, the effects group created a snowflake generator that allowed them to randomly create 2,000 unique snowflake shapes for the film.21 "Frozen" Facts That Make Us Ready for Winter Another challenge that the studio had to face was to deliver shots of heavy and deep snow that both interacted believably with characters and had a realistic sticky quality. According to principal software engineer Andrew Selle, "Snow's not really a fluid. It’s not really a solid. It breaks apart. It can be compressed into snowballs. All of these different effects are very difficult to capture simultaneously." In order to achieve this, software engineers used advanced mathematics (the Material Point Method) and physics, with assistance from mathematics researchers at the University of California, Los AngelesUCLA's mathematicians bring snow to life for Disney's "Frozen"A material point method for snow simulation to create a snow simulator software application called Matterhorn. The tool was capable of depicting realistic snow in a virtual environment and was used in at least 43 scenes in the film, including several key sequences.Making of Disney's Frozen: A Material Point Method For Snow Simulation Software engineer Alexey Stomakhin referred to snow as "an important character in the film," therefore it attracted special attention from the filmmakers. "When you stretch it, snow will break into chunks. Since snow doesn't have any connections, it doesn't have a mesh, it can break very easily. So that was an important property we took advantage of," explained Selle. "There you see Kristoff walking through and see his footprints breaking the snow into little pieces and chunk up and you see Anna being pulled out and the snow having packed together and broken into pieces. It's very organic how that happens. You don't see that they're pieces already – you see the snow as one thing and then breaking up." The tool also proved to be particularly useful in scenes involving characters walking through deep snow, as it ensured that the snow reacted naturally to each step. Other tools designed to help artists complete complicated effects included Spaces, which allowed Olaf's deconstructible parts to be moved around and rebuilt, Flourish, which aided extra movement such as leaves and twigs to be art-directed; Snow Batcher, which helped preview the final look of the snow, especially when characters were interacting with an area of snow by walking through a volume, and Tonic, which enabled artists to sculpt their characters' hair as procedural volumes. Tonic also aided in animating fur and hair elements such as Elsa's hair, which contains 420,000 computer-generated threads, while the average number for a real human being is only 100,000. The number of character rigs in Frozen is 312 and the number of simulated costumes also reached 245 cloth rigs, which were far beyond all other Disney films to date. Fifty effects artists and lighting artists worked together on the technology to create "one single shot" in which Elsa builds her ice palace. Its complexity required 30 hours to render each frame, with 4,000 computers rendering one frame at a time.Disney's "Frozen" to Warm Hearts This WeekCountdown to Disney "Frozen" : The flaky design idea behind the look of Elsa's ice palace Besides 3D effects, the filmmakers also used 2D artworks and drawings for specific elements and sequences in the film, including Elsa's magic and snow sculptures, as well as freezing fountains and floors. The effects group created a "capture stage" where the entire world of Frozen gets displayed on monitors, which can be "filmed" on special cameras to operate a three-dimensional scene. "We can take this virtual set that's mimicking all of my actions and put it into any one of our scenes in the film," said technology manager Evan Goldberg. Scandinavian and Sámi inspiration The setting was principally based on Norway, and the cultural influences in the film come from Scandinavian culture. Several landmarks in Norway appear in the film, including the Akershus Fortress in Oslo, the Nidaros Cathedral in Trondheim, and Bryggen in Bergen. Numerous other typical cultural Scandinavian elements are also included in the film, such as stave churches,6 surprises I learned about "Frozen" fresh from filmmakers at Walt Disney Animation Studios preview event trolls,[http://waltdisneystudiosawards.com/downloads/frozen-screenplay.pdf Frozen's Final Shooting Draft] Viking ships, Fjord horses,Disney's Frozen Movie and Sitron the Fjord Horse clothes, and food such as lutefisk.Female Directors are Changing the Story in Disney Animation A maypole is also present in the film, as well as the brief appearance of runes in a book that the King opens to figure out where the trolls live. The perennial Norwegian debate over how to stack firewood properly (bark up or bark down)Bark Up or Down? Firewood Splits Norwegians is briefly shown in the film. The film also contains several elements specifically drawn from the Sámi culture, such as the usage of reindeer for transportation and the equipment used to control these, clothing styles (the outfits of the ice cutters), and parts of the musical score.Nidarosdomen i ny Disney-film (in Norwegian)Vi ligner mest med lua på (in Norwegian) Decorations, such as those on the castle pillars and Kristoff's sled, are also in styles inspired by Sámi duodji decorations. During their field work in Norway, Disney's team, for inspiration, visited Rørosrein, a Sámi family-owned company in the village Plassje that produces reindeer meat and arranges tourist events.Se, en samisk Disney-helt! (in Norwegian) Arendelle was inspired by Nærøyfjord, a branch of Norway's longest fjord Sognefjorden, which has been listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site;Disney's Frozen: Inspired by Norway's beauty while a castle in Oslo with beautiful hand-painted patterns on all four walls served as the inspiration for the kingdom's royal castle interior.Evil Elsa, shy Kristoff? 10 "Frozen" facts you probably didn't know The filmmakers' trip to Norway provided essential knowledge for the animators to come up with the design aesthetic for the film in terms of color, light, and atmosphere. According to Giaimo, there were three important factors that they had acquired from this research trip: the fjords, which are the massive vertical rock formations, and serve as the setting for the secluded kingdom of Arendelle; the medieval stave churches, whose rustic triangular rooflines and shingles inspired the castle compound; and the rosemaling folk art, whose distinctive paneling and grid patterns informed the architecture, decor, and costumes. Music and sound effects The songs for Frozen were written and composed by the husband-and-wife songwriting team of Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez, both of whom had previously worked with Disney Animation on Winnie the Pooh (2011) and before that, with Disney Parks on Finding Nemo-The Musical (2007).Husband-wife songwriting team's emotions flow in "Frozen"Frozen composers Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez Because they live in New York City, collaborating closely with the production team in Burbank required two-hour-long transcontinental videoconferences nearly every weekday for about 14 months.Disney's Frozen Wins Academy Award for Animated FeatureAwards Spotlight: 'Frozen' Director Chris Buck on Crafting Well-Rounded Female Characters For each song they composed, they recorded a demo in their home studio, then emailed it to Burbank for discussion at the next videoconference.Awards Spotlight: Robert Lopez & Kristen Anderson-Lopez Make Beautiful Music Together for Disney’s ‘Frozen’ Lopez and Anderson-Lopez were aware of the fact that their work would be compared to that of Alan Menken and Howard Ashman from the Disney Renaissance era, and whenever they felt lost, they asked "What would Ashman do?"‘Frozen’ Aims for Watermark notched by ‘Mermaid,’ ‘Beauty & Beast’ In the end, they wrote 25 songs for the film, of which eight made it into the final version. One song ("For The First Time In Forever") had a reprise and the other ("Let It Go") was covered by Demi Lovato over the final credits, for a total of ten songs. Seven of the 17 that didn't make it were later released on the deluxe edition soundtrack. Lopez and Anderson-Lopez's "Let It Go" and "In Summer" were previewed at the 2013 D23 Expo; Idina Menzel performed the former.D23 Expo: Disney Fanfest Starts Off Strong with Animation Lineup In February 2013, Christophe Beck was hired to score the film, following his work on Paperman, a Disney animated short film released the year prior to Frozen.Christophe Beck to Score Disney's "Frozen" Kristen Bell also confirmed that there would be a duet between her and Menzel. It was also revealed on September 14, 2013, that Sámi musician Frode Fjellheim's Eatnemen Vuelie would be the film's opening song, as it contains elements of the traditional Sámi singing style joik.Frozen Stuff: Opening Song and Oh So Many Olaf PostersTrøndersk joik åpner Disney-film (in Norwegian) The songs by Lopez and Anderson-Lopez were arranged and orchestrated by Dave Metzger, who also orchestrated a significant portion of Beck's score. For the orchestral film score, Beck paid homage to the Norway- and Sápmi-inspired setting by employing regional instruments, such as the bukkehorn, and traditional vocal techniques, such as kulning.Walt Disney Animation Studios' "Frozen" Lets Go With Dynamic Soundtrack The music producers recruited a Norwegian linguist to assist with the lyrics for an Old Norse song written for Elsa's coronation, and traveled to Trondheim, Norway to record the all-female choir Cantus, for a piece inspired by traditional Sámi music. The score was recorded by an 80-piece orchestra, featuring 32 vocalists, including native Norwegian Christine Hals. Beck worked with Lopez and Anderson-Lopez on incorporating their songs into arrangements in the score. The trio's goal "was to create a cohesive musical journey from beginning to end." Regarding the sound of Frozen, director Jennifer Lee stated that sound played a huge part in making the film "visceral" and "transported"; she explained, "in letting it tell the story emotionally, the sound of the ice when it's at its most dangerous just makes you shudder."Jennifer Lee & Chris Buck interview: Frozen, Statham, Frozen 2 The complete silence at the climax of the film right after Anna freezes was Lasseter's idea, one he "really wanted". In that scene, even the ambient sound that would normally be there was taken out in order to make it feel unusual. Lee explained "that was a moment where we wanted everything to feel suspended." Additionally, in order to obtain the various ice and snow-related sounds heard throughout the film, sound designer Odin Benitez traveled to Mammoth Mountain, California to record them at a frozen lake. Localization Like other Disney media products which are often localized through Disney Character Voices International, Frozen was translated and dubbed into 41 languages (compared with only 15 for The Lion King).'Frozen': Finding a diva in 41 languages A major challenge was to find sopranos capable of matching Menzel's warm vocal tone and three-octave vocal range in their native languages.'Let It Go': A Global Hit In Any Language Rick Dempsey, the unit's senior executive, regarded the process of translating the film as "exceptionally challenging"; he explained, "It's a difficult juggling act to get the right intent of the lyrics and also have it match rhythmically to the music. And then you have to go back and adjust for lip sync! It...requires a lot of patience and precision."How These Singers Around the Globe Pushed 'Frozen' Over the Top For the casting of dubbed versions, Disney required native speakers in order to "ensure that the film feels 'local'." They used Bell and Menzel's voices as their "blueprint" in casting, and tried to match the voices "as much as possible", meaning that they auditioned approximately 200 singers to fill the 41 slots. For nearly 15 dubbed versions, they cast Elsa's singing and speaking parts separately, since not all vocalists could act the part they were singing. Release Frozen was released theatrically in the United States on November 27, 2013, and it was accompanied by the new Mickey Mouse animated short film Get a Horse!D23 Expo: Mickey Mouse Short "Get A Horse" Debuts; Will Open With "Frozen" The film's premiere was at the El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood, California on November 19, 2013,Disney's "Frozen" Premiere Warms Up Audience in Hollywood and had a five-day limited release there, starting from November 22, before going into wide opening.Disney's Frozen to Open Five Days Early at the El Capitan TheatreDisney's "Frozen" Glides Into El Capitan for Exclusive Early Release Prior to the film's release, a teaser trailer had been released on June 18, 2013,"Frozen" teaser trailer: Disney releases first look at new animated filmThe Teaser Trailer for Disney's Frozen followed by the release of the official trailer on September 26, 2013.Disney's Frozen Official TrailerWalt Disney's Frozen – Official TrailerDisney's Frozen Official Trailer Frozen was also promoted heavily at several Disney theme parks including Disneyland's Fantasyland, Disney California Adventure's World of Color, Epcot's Norway pavilion, and Disneyland Paris' Disney Dreams! show,"Frozen" characters set to visit Epcot's Norway, be seen in Magic Kingdom showAnna and Elsa joined by animated Olaf for "Frozen" character meet-and-greet in Royal Reception at Disneyland with meet-and-greet sessions involving the film's two main characters Anna and Elsa."Frozen" characters draw unprecedented lines at Disneyland On November 6, 2013, Disney Consumer Products began releasing a line of toys and other merchandise relating to the film in Disney Store and other retailers.Press release: Disney Celebrates Family Bonds and Epic Storytelling in New Frozen Product Collection Available at Retail Now On January 31, 2014, a sing-along issue of Frozen was released in 2,057 theaters in the United States. This version featured on-screen lyrics, and viewers were invited to follow the bouncing snowflake and sing along with the songs from the film.Sing-along "Frozen" coming to theatersCinemark – Frozen Sing-a-longBox Office: "Frozen" Sing-Along Hits High Note in Friday Matinee Sales Home media Frozen was released for digital download on February 25, 2014, on Google Play, iTunes and Amazon."Frozen" now available for digital download – win a copy! It was also released by Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment on Blu-ray Disc and DVD on March 18, 2014.New releases: Disney's Oscar-winning heartwarmer 'Frozen' Bonus features for the Blu-ray release include "The Making of Frozen", a three-minute musical production about how the film was made,Kristen Bell, Jonathan Groff, and Josh Gad sing about the making of 'Frozen' in epic new song an inside look at how Disney tried to adapt the original fairy tale into an animated feature, four deleted scenes with introduction by the directors, the original theatrical short Get a Horse!, the film's teaser trailer, and "Let It Go" music videos by Demi Lovato, Martina Stoessel and Marsha Milan Londoh.Frozen Blu-rayFrozen (Two-Disc Blu-ray / DVD + Digital Copy) (2013) On its first day of release on Blu-ray and DVD, Frozen sold 3.2 million units, becoming one of the biggest home video sellers in the last decade, as well as Amazon's best-selling children's disc of all time.‘Frozen’ Sells Massive 3.2 Million Discs in One Day The digital download release of the film also set a record as the fastest-selling digital release of all time.'Frozen' Sells 3.2 Million Blu-ray, DVD Units in First Day'Frozen' Makes Huge Debut on Disc Video games A video game titled Frozen: Olaf's Quest was released on November 19, 2013, for Nintendo DS and Nintendo 3DS.GameMill Publishing's "Disney Frozen: Olaf's Quest" is Available Today for Nintendo DS and Nintendo 3DS Developed by 1st Playable Productions and published by GameMill Entertainment,GameMill Publishing Announces Video Game Companion to Walt Disney Animation Studios Film "Frozen" For Nintendo 3DS™ and Nintendo DS™ it takes place after the events of the film. In the game, Olaf must use his unique snowman abilities to try and stay in one piece throughout 60 levels. Anna and Elsa were released as figurines in the Frozen toy box pack for the toy-based video game Disney INFINITY on November 26, 2013,Disney Infinity to add Wreck-It Ralph, Tangled, Frozen charactersFrozen, Rapunzel, Wreck-It Ralph hit Disney Infinity this holiday and both figures were released separately on March 11, 2014.Disney Infinity Figure (Elsa) – PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Nintendo Wii, Wii U, 3DSDisney Infinity Figure (Anna) – PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Nintendo Wii, Wii U, 3DS Additionally, Disney Mobile released a match-three game titled Frozen: Free Fall for iOS, Android and Windows Phone platforms. It takes place in the kingdom of Arendelle and closely follows the original story of the film, in which players can team up with Anna, Elsa, Kristoff, Hans, Olaf, Pabbie and Sven to match puzzles with the help of each character's special power-ups.Frozen Free Fall – Disney GamesFrozen Free Fall Walkthrough, Cheats and Strategy Guide Six mini-games can be played on the Disney website.Frozen (2013): Games & Apps International releases *November 20, 2013 (Armenia, France, Georgia) *November 27, 2013 (Canada, Philippines) *November 28, 2013 (Germany, Macedonia, Israel, Croatia, Malaysia, Portugal, Singapore) *November 29, 2013 (Bulgaria, Spain, Indonesia, Poland, India) *December 4, 2013 (France, Belgium) *December 5, 2013 (Hungary, Cambodia, Slovenia, Thailand) *December 6, 2013 (UK, Ireland) *December 7, 2013 (UAE) *December 11, 2013 (Netherlands) *December 12, 2013 (Russia) *December 13, 2013 (Iceland, Vietnam) *December 18, 2013 (Egypt) *December 19, 2013 (Greece, Hong Kong, Italy, Kuwait, Mexico, Ukraine) *December 20, 2013 (Finland, Pakistan, South Africa) *December 25, 2013 (Denmark, Norway) *December 26, 2013 (Australia, New Zealand, Serbia) *December 27, 2013 (Romania, Taiwan) *January 2, 2014 (Argentina, Chile) *January 3, 2014 (Brazil, Lithuania) *January 16, 2014 (Spain) *January 17, 2014 (Estonia, Turkey) *February 5, 2014 (China) *February 14, 2014 (Bangladesh) *March 14, 2014 (Japan) Reception Box office Frozen has earned $400,385,486 in North America as of May 8, 2014, and $768,900,000 in other countries as of May 4, for a worldwide total of $1,169,285,486. It is the sixth highest-grossing film,All Time Worldwide Box Office Results the highest-grossing animated film,GLOBAL: 'Captain America' Takes $75.2M Debut Ahead of North American Release; 'Noah' on the Verge of Hitting $100M; 'Frozen' is the Top Animated Film of All Time; 'Rio 2' Takes Record Breaking Brazilian Debut to Climb to $29.7M the second highest-grossing 2013 film,2013 Yearly Box Office Results - Box Office Mojo the highest-grossing Walt Disney Pictures release, and the third highest-grossing film distributed by Disney."Frozen" hits $1 billion mark at worldwide box office The film earned $110.6 million worldwide in its opening weekend.All Time Worldwide Opening Records On March 2, 2014, its 101st day of release, it surpassed the $1 billion mark, becoming the eighteenth film in cinematic history, the seventh Disney-distributed film, the fifth non-sequel film,Weekend Report: Neeson Beats Jesus, "Frozen" Hits $1 Billion the second Disney-distributed film in 2013 (after Iron Man 3), and the second animated film (after Toy Story 3) to do so.Box Office Milestone: "Frozen" Crosses $1 Billion Worldwide Bloomberg Businessweek magazine reported in March 2014 that outside analysts had projected the film's total cost at somewhere around $323 million to $350 million for production, marketing, and distribution, and had also projected that the film would generate $1.3 billion in revenue from box office ticket sales, digital downloads, discs, and television rights.Disney’s ‘Frozen’ Passing $1 Billion Cements Rebound North America Frozen became Fandango's top advance ticket seller among original animated films, ahead of previous record-holder Brave,"Catching Fire" and "Frozen" Heat Up Fandango's Fanticipation with Brisk Advance Ticket Sales for Thanksgiving Weekend and became the top-selling animated film in the company's history in late January 2014. The sing-along version of the film later topped the best-selling list of the movie ticketing service again for three days. Frozen opened on Friday, November 22, 2013, exclusively at the El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood for a five-day limited release and earned $342,839 before its wide opening on Wednesday, November 27, 2013.Weekend Report: "Catching Fire" Burns Bright, Sets November Record During the three-day weekend it earned $243,390, scoring the seventh largest per-theater average.TOP WEEKEND THEATER AVERAGES On the opening day of its wide release, the film earned $15.2 millionFrozen (2013) – Daily Box Office Results (including $800,000 from Tuesday previews)UPDATE Box Office and set a record for the highest pre-Thanksgiving Wednesday opening, ahead of Tangled ($11.9 million)."Catching Fire", "Frozen" Chase Thanksgiving Box Office Records It was also the second largest pre-Thanksgiving Wednesday among all films, behind Catching Fire ($20.8 million). The film finished in second place over the traditional three-day weekend (Friday-to-Sunday) with $67.4 million, setting an opening weekend record among Walt Disney Animation Studios films."Frozen" Smashes Disney Animation Opening Weekend Records It also scored the second largest opening weekend among films that did not debut at #1.Biggest Opening Weekends That Did Not Debut at #1.Weekend Report: "Catching Fire", "Frozen" Set Thanksgiving Records Among films that opened during Thanksgiving, it set new records; three-day ($67.4 million from Friday to Sunday)Biggest 3-day Thanksgiving Openings at the Box Office and five-day ($93.6 million from Wednesday to Sunday).Biggest 5-day Thanksgiving Openings at the Box Office It also achieved the second largest three-dayBiggest 3-day Thanksgiving Weekends at the Box Office and five-dayBiggest 5-day Thanksgiving Weekends at the Box Office Thanksgiving gross among all films, behind Catching Fire.NORTH AMERICA: Studio Weekend Estimates: "The Hunger Games: Catching Fire" Sets New Five-Day Thanksgiving Weekend Record With $110.2M; "Frozen" Ices Expectations With $93.0M Five-Day Start During its second weekend of wide release, Frozen declined 53% to $31.6 million, but jumped to first place, setting a record for the largest post-Thanksgiving weekend, ahead of Toy Story 2 ($27.8 million).Weekend Report: "Frozen" Beats "Fire," "Furnace" Melts Frozen became the first film since Avatar to reach first place in its sixth weekend of wide release.Weekend Report: "Frozen" Chills "Paranormal" Spin-Off This Weekend It remained in the top 10 at the box office for sixteen consecutive weekendsDisney's 'Frozen' and Marvel's 'Captain America: The Winter Soldier' Heat Up Box Offices Around the WorldFrozen (2013) – Weekend Box Office Results – Box Office Mojo (the longest run by any film since 2002) and achieved large weekend grosses from its fifthWeekend Report: "Hobbit," "Frozen" Top "Wolf," "Mitty" on Final Weekend of 2013 to its twelfth weekend (of wide release), compared to other films in their respective weekends.Top Grossing Movies in their 5th to 12th Weekends at the Box Office: *Top Grossing Movies in Their 5th Weekend at the Box Office *Top Grossing Movies in Their 6th Weekend at the Box Office *Top Grossing Movies in Their 7th Weekend at the Box Office *Top Grossing Movies in Their 8th Weekend at the Box Office *Top Grossing Movies in Their 9th Weekend at the Box Office *Top Grossing Movies in Their 10th Weekend at the Box Office *Top Grossing Movies in Their 11th Weekend at the Box Office *Top Grossing Movies in Their 12th Weekend at the Box Office On April 25, 2014, Frozen became the 19th movie to gross $400 million in North America and the 15th to do so without a major re-release.Friday Report: 'Other Woman' On Pace for $25 Million Debut In North America, Frozen is the nineteenth highest-grossing film,All Time Domestic Box Office Results the third highest-grossing 2013 film,2013 Domestic Grosses, 2013 Yearly Box Office Results – Box Office Mojo the fourth highest-grossing animated film,Animation Movies at the Box Office the highest-grossing 2013 animated film, the fifth highest-grossing 3-D film,3D Movies at the Box Office and the second highest-grossing Walt Disney Animation Studios film.Walt Disney Animation Studios Movies at the Box Office Excluding re-releases, it has the highest-grossing initial run among non-sequel animated films (a record previously held by Finding Nemo)Weekend Report: "Ride Along" Runs Over "I, Frankenstein"Frozen leads int'l BO on $24m and among Walt Disney Animation Studios films (a record previously held by The Lion King).‘Frozen’ Pushes Past ‘Lion King’ To Become Disney Animation’s Highest Grossing Film In North America Outside North America Frozen is the ninth highest-grossing film,All Time Worldwide Box Office Results (Sorted by overseas grosses) the highest-grossing animated film,Box Office: 'Heaven Is for Real' Crushes Johnny Depp's Latest Bomb 'Transcendence' and the second highest-grossing 2013 film.2013 Yearly Box Office Results It is the highest-grossing animated film in South Korea, Denmark and Venezuela.Weekend Report: "Ride Along" Avoids "Awkward Moment," Three-peats Over Super Bowl Weekend It is also the highest-grossing Walt Disney Animation Studios film in at least 50 territories,Disney's Frozen Passes One Billion Dollars at Box Office including the Latin America region (specifically in Mexico and Brazil), the UK, Ireland, and Malta, Russia and the CIS, Ukraine, Norway, Malaysia, Singapore, Australia and China.Hobbit 2 soars past $500m int'ldate=January 12, 2014 UPDATED GLOBAL: "Frozen" Breaks "Hobbit" Streak, Crosses $700M; Big China Debut For "Despicable Me 2"; "12 Years A Slave" #1 In The UKGLOBAL: "Frozen" Breaks $800M; "I, Frankenstein" Opens Strong In RussiaWeekend Report: Everything Is Awesome For "The LEGO Movie" The film made its debut outside North America on the same weekend as its wide North American release and earned $16.7 million from sixteen markets. It topped the box office outside North America for two weekends in 2014; January 10–12 ($27.8 million)Weekend Report: Audiences Flock to "Lone Survivor," Avoid "Hercules," "Her" and February 7–9 ($24 million).Weekend Report: Everything Is Awesome For "The LEGO Movie" Overall, its largest opening weekends occurred in China (five-day opening of $14.3 million),Weekly box office Russia and the CIS ($11.9 million, including previews from previous weekend), where the film set an opening weekend record among Disney animated films (ahead of Tangled),RUSSIA: "Frozen" Off To A Hot Start and Japan (three-day opening of $9.73 million).'Frozen' Sets Disney Opening Weekend Record in JapanFrozen (2013) – International Box Office Results It set an opening weekend record among animated films in Sweden.GLOBAL: "Frozen" Continues To Dominate, Passes $500M Overseas In total earnings, the film's top market after North America is Japan, with $143.2 million (topping the country's box office for eight consecutive weekends), followed by South Korea ($76.9 million), and the United Kingdom, Ireland and Malta ($65.3 million)."Frozen" Crosses $75 Million in South Korea, Breaks Local RecordsFrozen (2013) – International Box Office Results In South Korea, Frozen is the second largest foreign film both in terms of attendance and gross,South Korea Box Office: "Frozen" Becomes Second Most Watched Foreign Film the largest Disney release in the market, and the first animated film to earn more than ten million admissions."Frozen" Crosses $75 Million in South Korea, Breaks Local Records Critical response Frozen received widespread critical acclaim, with several critics comparing the film favorably to the films of the Disney Renaissance, particularly The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin and The Lion King."Frozen" is the Best Disney Film Since "The Lion King" Indeed, some journalists thought the film's success marked a second Disney Renaissance.‘Frozen’ makes history two times over on Oscar weekendA Charmed Life for Disney's 'Frozen' The film was praised for its visuals, themes, musical numbers, screenplay, and voice acting, especially of Kristen Bell, Idina Menzel and Josh Gad.Splendid Sights, Musical Might Melt "Frozen" The "Let It Go" musical sequence was repeatedly singled out for praise; some critics called it one of the best film sequences of the year."Frozen" mixes music and animation to create a soaring holiday delight17 Best Movie Moments Of 2013Best Movie Moments of 2013 Included Scenes from Iron Man 3, Gravity, Fast & Furious 6, and More The review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes reports that 89% of critics gave the film a positive review based on 186 reviews, with an average score of 7.7/10, making it the highest-rated family film in 2013. The site's consensus reads: "Beautifully animated, smartly written, and stocked with singalong songs, Frozen adds another worthy entry to the Disney canon."Frozen (2013) Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 top reviews from mainstream critics, calculated a score of 74 based on 43 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews."Frozen CinemaScore gave Frozen an "A+" on an A+ to F scale, based on polls conducted during the opening weekend.Box Office: "Frozen" Opens to Stellar $15.2 Million Wednesday; "Catching Fire" Still No. 1Thanksgiving Box Office: "Catching Fire," "Frozen" Serve Up Holiday Records Surveys conducted by Fandango among 1,000 ticket buyers showed that 75% of purchasers had seen the film at least once, and 52% had seen it twice. It was also pointed out that 55% of audiences identified "Let It Go" as their favorite song, while "Do You Want to Build a Snowman?" and "For the First Time in Forever" held proportions of 21% and 9%, respectively. Frozen was named the seventh best film of 2013 by Richard Corliss of TimeTop 10 Best Movies and Kyle Smith of the New York Post.Kyle Smith and Lou Lumenick's Top 10 lists Alonso Duralde of The Wrap wrote that the film is "the best animated musical to come out of Disney since the tragic death of lyricist Howard Ashman, whose work on The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast helped build the studio's modern animated division into what it is today." He also said that "while it lags the tiniest bit on its way to the conclusion, the script... really delivers; it offers characters to care about, along with some nifty twists and surprises along the way." Todd McCarthy of The Hollywood Reporter observed Frozen as a true musical and wrote, "You can practically see the Broadway musical Frozen is destined to become while watching Disney's 3D animated princess tale." McCarthy described the film as "energetic, humorous and not too cloying, as well as the first Hollywood film in many years to warn of global cooling rather than warming, this tuneful toon upgrades what has been a lackluster year for big studio animated fare and, beginning with its Thanksgiving opening, should live up to box office expectations as one of the studio's hoped-for holiday-spanning blockbusters."Frozen: Film Review Kyle Smith of the New York Post awarded the film 3.5 out of 4 stars and praised the film as "a great big snowy pleasure with an emotionally gripping core, brilliant Broadway-style songs and a crafty plot. Its first and third acts are better than the jokey middle, but this is the rare example of a Walt Disney Animation Studios effort that reaches as deep as a Pixar film."Disney's "Frozen" will melt your heart Scott Mendelson of Forbes wrote, "Frozen is both a declaration of Disney's renewed cultural relevance and a reaffirmation of Disney coming to terms with its own legacy and its own identity. It's also a just plain terrific bit of family entertainment.""Frozen" Is Disney's Triumphant Reaffirmation Of Its Cultural Legacy The Los Angeles Times extolled the film's ensemble voice talent and elaborate musical sequences, and declared Frozen as "a welcome return to greatness for Walt Disney Animation Studios."Review: "Frozen" an icy blast of fun from the first snowflake Entertainment Weekly's Owen Gleiberman gave the film a "B+" grade and labeled it as a "squarely enchanting fairy tale that shows you how the definition of what's fresh in animation can shift."Movie Review : Frozen (2013) Richard Corliss of Time stated that, "It's great to see Disney returning to its roots and blooming anew: creating superior musical entertainment that draws on the Walt tradition of animation splendor and the verve of Broadway present."Frozen: This Disney Princess Movie Is Thaw-some Richard Roeper wrote that the film was an "absolute delight from start to finish."Richard Roeper & the Movies: "Frozen" Review Both Michael Phillips of Chicago Tribune and Stephen Holden of The New York Times praised the film's characters and musical sequences, which also drew comparisons to the theatrics found in Wicked.'Frozen': Defying meteorologyFrom the Heat of Royal Passion, Poof! It's Permafrost Emma Dibdin of Digital Spy awarded the film five out of five stars and called the film "a new Disney classic" and "an exhilarating, joyous, human story that's as frequently laugh-out-loud funny as it is startling and daring and poignant. Hot on the heels of the 90th anniversary, it's impossible to imagine a more perfect celebration of everything Disney is at its best.""Frozen" review: Heartfelt fairytale musical is a new Disney classic Frozen was also praised in Norwegian Sámi media as showcasing Sámi culture (which historically has faced attempted eradication by the Norwegian state) to a broad audience in a good way. Composer Frode Fjellheim was lauded by Norwegian Sámi President Aili Keskitalo for his contributions to the film, during the President's 2014 New Year's speech.Sámi thing: President's New Year speech (in Norwegian)Frode pushed down Beyoncé (in Norwegian) Scott Foundas of Variety, was less impressed with the film, but nevertheless commended its voice acting and technical artistry: "The tactile, snow-capped Arendelle landscape, including Elsa's ice-castle retreat is Frozen's other true marvel, enhanced by 3D and the decision to shoot in widescreen – a nod to the CinemaScope richness of Sleeping Beauty and Lady and the Tramp."Film Review: "Frozen" The Seattle Times gave the film two out of four stars, stating that "While it is an often gorgeous film with computer-generated fjords and ice sculptures and castle interiors, the important thing that glues all this stuff together – story – is sadly lacking.""Frozen": Visuals are solid, but narrative is on thin ice Joe Williams of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch also criticized the story as the film's weakest point."Frozen" is pretty but pointless Writing on Roger Ebert's website, Christy Lemire gave a mixed review in which she awarded two-and-a-half stars out of four."Frozen" Lemire praised the visuals and the performance of "Let It Go", as well as the positive messages Frozen sends. However, she referred to the film as "cynical" and criticized it as an "attempt to shake things up without shaking them up too much." She also noted the similarity between Elsa and another well-known fictional female who unleashes paranormal powers when agitated, Carrie. Portrayal of emotions Lino DiSalvo, head of animation for Frozen, described the difficulty of portraying emotions: Some media commentators took this to mean that a difficulty exists due to a limited range of facial variation for 21st-century Disney female animated characters because of the need to keep them "pretty", and charged him with sexism.Do Animated Female Characters Need to Be 'Pretty'?'Frozen' Head of Animation Says Animating Women is 'Really, Really Difficult'Disney's 'Frozen' Animator Draws Heat for Female Character Comments A Disney spokesperson told Time that DiSalvo's quote was widely misinterpreted stating that he was "describing some technical aspects of CG animation and not making a general comment on animating females versus males or other characters." Director Jennifer Lee also expressed her sadness towards the case, explaining that his words were recklessly taken out of context, and that he was talking in very technical terms about CG animation. "It is hard no matter what the gender is. I felt horrible for him. He was so proud what achieved in the movie. We never had such sophisticated rigs (the skeletal structure of the figures used to model characters on a computer) to show awkwardness and grief on a face. I'm so proud of them." she stated. Accolades Frozen was nominated for various awards and won a number of them, including several for Best Animated Feature. The song "Let It Go" was particularly praised. The film was nominated for two Golden Globes at the 71st Golden Globe Awards and won for Best Animated Feature, becoming the first Walt Disney Animation Studios film to win in this category. It also won two Academy Awards for Best Animated Feature and Best Original Song ("Let It Go"),2013 Academy Awards Nominations and Winners by Category the BAFTA Award for Best Animated Film at the British Academy Film Awards (BAFTA),Film in 2014 five Annie Awards (including Best Animated Feature),Annie Awards 2014: Complete list of winners and nominees"Frozen" wins Annie Award for best animated film, several others and two Critics' Choice Awards for Best Animated Feature and Best Original Song ("Let It Go").Critics' Choice Awards: The Winners It received other similar nominations at the Satellite Awards,The International Press Academy Announces Nominations For The 18th Annual Satellite Awards™ and various critics' groups and circles. Franchise potential Bob Iger, chairman and chief executive officer of The Walt Disney Company, stated in a January 2014 interview with Fortune that Disney Theatrical Productions is in early development of a Broadway stage musical adaptation of Frozen.Disney Considering "Frozen" for Broadway, ObviouslyIce, Ice, Baby: Frozen inspires a totally chilled-out cult following, (Time, volume 183, issue 7, pages 48–59)Disney CEO Iger: Frozen has restored our mojo No specific date has yet been set for this adaptation. "We're not demanding speed," Iger said. "We're demanding excellence."Disney Frozen To Great White Way A microsite for the stage adaptation has been launched by Disney, where users can sign up to receive email updates on the musical.Frozen on Stage During The Walt Disney Company 2014 first-quarter earnings conference call on February 5, 2014, Iger congratulated "all those involved with Frozen" and reiterated that it would "be going to Broadway."Transcript of the Walt Disney Company Q1 FY14 Earnings Conference Call He also noted that Frozen "has real franchise potential" and predicted that "You will see Frozen in more places than you've certainly seen today." In the same earnings call, Iger alluded to "high demand for Frozen merchandise," which was expanded upon by Disney senior executive vice president and chief financial officer Jay Rasulo: "Over the most recent quarter...if I had to pick out a single item, I would say Frozen items were the single most demanded items at Disney Stores." In March 2014, Bloomberg Businessweek reported that Disney had sold almost 500,000 Anna and Elsa dolls, with a 5,000 limited-edition run selling out online in only 45 minutes in January. Demand only increased further after the mid-March home video release; toy industry expert Jim Silver explained home video enabled children to "watch it over and over again" and "fall in love" with the film's characters.A 'Frozen' retail supply angers parents, saddens kids Chris Buck mentioned in an April 2014 interview that the directors hadn't bought anything for themselves "thinking it wouldn't be a problem, and now everything's sold out!" By mid-April, U.S. consumer demand for Frozen merchandise was so high that resale prices for higher-quality limited-edition Frozen dolls and costumes had skyrocketed past $1,000 on eBay, both Disney and its licensees had arranged for air freight to rush fresh inventory to retailers besieged by desperate parents, and some of those parents had begun publicly venting their frustration through social media outlets such as the Disney Store's Facebook page.{Want to buy "Frozen" merchandise? Be prepared to wait or pay upMost-wanted dress in the U.S.: 'Frozen's' Elsa frock'Frozen' Elsa dress selling for $1,000 on eBayElsa's Frozen Dress: The Hottest Gown in Town Needham & Co. analyst Sean McGowan compared the situation to the 1980s Cabbage Patch Kids craze, where "the demand is ... driven by the scarcity because of the social status attached to being able to find it".‘Frozen’ merch is making parents do crazy things Fed up with the shortage, some parents took a "do it yourself" approach, and others went for custom-made replicas on crafts sites like Etsy. Similar shortages of Frozen merchandise were reported in the UK,Frozen merchandise shortage spells trouble for parents Canada,Frozen-out in the toy aisle: Why merch for Disney’s hit film is in short supply France,La Reine des Neiges : un succès qui rend fou (in French) and Singapore,'Frozen' dress sold out in Singapore though not as severe. In a mid-April interview, Disney Store Vice President Jonathan Storey admitted that although Disney had high expectations for the film, "demand went even higher than they thought it ever would."Disney Store promises more "Frozen" merchandise, mall experience to continue kid focus sending adults online He also promised that more Frozen merchandise would be delivered to Disney Store locations immediately through regular shipments, and that new products were being developed for release throughout the year. Meanwhile, the meet-and-greets with Anna and Elsa at Disneyland and Epcot had been initially sponsored by The Walt Disney Studios as short-term temporary attractions to promote the film, but in February 2014, Disney Parks decided to extend them indefinitely in response to unprecedented demand, though now it had to find the money in its own budget to fund them going forward.Studio Promotions at WDWMinor characters discontinued; Frozen characters extended By the beginning of March, wait time was reportedly as long as four or five hours to see Anna and Elsa, which fueled outside speculation about whether Disney Parks would respond with additional Frozen-specific attractions.Could Disney's 'Frozen' play bigger role in theme parks? After wait times at Norway Pavilion in Walt Disney World's Epcot reportedly reached six hours,Frozen Out: One Reporter's Tortured Quest to Meet Disneyland's Anna and Elsa in mid-April the Anna and Elsa meet-and-greets were finally moved to Princess Fairytale Hall at Magic Kingdom Park, where park guests could use the new FastPass+ reservation system (part of Disney's MyMagic+ project) to bypass the lengthy wait time."Frozen" characters find new home at Walt Disney World as FastPass+ cuts wait to meet Anna and Elsa – when it works'Frozen' Anna & Elsa Arrive at Princess Fairytale Hall Today To date, Disney's Fastpass has not been made available for the Disneyland meet-and-greets, meaning that a journalist who tried standing in line on April 23, 2014 (a non-holiday mid-week morning five months after the film's premiere) had to wait three hours. Jezebel.com commented on the phenomenon, "Word has it that those characters are like the Beatles now, attracting large crowds of screaming females." However, as of April 2014, there have not been any plans for Anna and Elsa to join the Disney Princess line-up, though Disney Store confirmed that it was still possible the characters would be added to that franchise in the future. At the end of March 2014, Del Vecho confirmed that there had been "discussions on how we can support the film's characters at other locations and we are also discussing making a theatrical musical version of Frozen, but these things take time."'Frozen' Producer Talks Franchise Rumors, Disney Strategy, Bizarre Popularity in South Korea (Q&A) As for the possibility of future sequels, Del Vecho explained that Buck, Lee and him "work very, very well together, so I believe we will be developing a new project. But I don't know what that is right now." In late April, Walt Disney Studios chairman Alan F. Horn said that "we haven't really talked about a sequel" because the studio's current priority is the planned Broadway musical, which will require "four or five" additional songs to be written by Lopez and Anderson-Lopez.Frozen Is a 'Gigantic' Success During the Walt Disney Company's 2014 second-quarter earnings call on May 6, 2014, Iger said Frozen "is definitely up there in terms of, probably, our top five franchises", and explained Disney was still working on the musical, as well as publishing, interactive, and theme park projects.Disney's Film Business Gets Big Boost From 'Frozen': Operating Income at Film Unit More Than Quadruples; Musical in the Works Rasulo disclosed that nine of the ten best-selling items at Disney Store in the second quarter were Frozen-related. Trivia *''Frozen'' features several nods to Disney's other feature-length Hans Christian Andersen tale The Little Mermaid, sometimes for the purpose of altering its elements rather starkly: **While The Little Mermaid begins with a view from the sky and later descends into the sea, Frozen begins with a view from under the sea and later ascends into the sky. **Both films begin with a pinch of backstory/foreshadowing delivered by men at work. In The Little Mermaid, sailors sing of Triton and Ursula in "Fathoms Below". In Frozen, ice harvesters give more vague foreshadowing in "Frozen Heart", but this time Elsa is not the villain like Ursula was. **While fantasizing about Prince Eric, Ariel speaks to and caresses the face of his statue. Anna does this also, yet in her case her affections are given to the handsome bust of an unknown dream prince...which ends up on top of a wedding-like cake. **The appearance and mannerisms of the Duke of Weselton invite comparison to those of Grimsby from The Little Mermaid. However, only one of them can be trusted. **Both Ariel and Anna fall in love at first sight (though Anna only think she does) with a handsome prince whom they have never met before. However, only Ariel can hope to gain with them a "happily ever after" with that specific prince. **Both Ariel and Elsa are forced to keep deep secrets locked away even from their own siblings. Once these secrets are revealed, both are greeted with destructive rejection, run away from their homes, and do something reckless involving dangerous magic. In both cases, the character can at this point be redeemed only by love (as it turns out, the self-sacrifice of a family member), yet in Elsa's case the magic comes from within. **Both Ariel and Anna enjoy the companionship of a silly sidekick who has little understanding of the world. Scuttle is a natural creature while Olaf is a magical one, but both give their heroine hope of survival in the 11th hour. *Frozen also features similarities with Disney's 1994 film The Lion King. Both Elsa and Simba are the heir of their kingdom, after they've lost their parents (Elsa's parents because of an accident, and Simba's father Mufasa killed by his uncle Scar). Both characters also run away from their home after their families' tragic incidents. After the characters leave, their kingdom were distracted because the kingdoms were ruled by villains (Hans and Scar). Also, both characters finally return back to their kingdom and live happily ever after. **Interestingly, both films are claimed as The Best Disney Animated Movie. The Lion King was instead first, and Frozen was the second. *Elsa and Anna's differing hair colors may be a nod to the Brothers Grimm's fairy tale, (also about sisters) Snow-White and Rose-Red. *Although some Disney Princess characters appear in films outside their franchise, such as in a non-related film (ie, Belle's cameo in The Hunchback of Notre Dame) or as a storybook/painting (such as the reference to Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty in Beauty and the Beast as well as Aurora's painting in The Little Mermaid), Frozen is the first film within the Disney Princess franchise to have two separate representatives in the Disney Princess series directly appear alongside each other (Rapunzel appears as a cameo during Elsa's coronation in the beginning of the film, as one of the attendees). *''Frozen's love story is similar to that of ''Enchanted: The main heroine falls in love with the prince, and after a disaster, has to spend time with someone else, and finds out at the end that her true love is actually not the prince, but the person whom she spent more time with. Both heroines also have a duet with the prince, and want to marry as soon as possible. *The names of four of the main characters were inspired by Hans Christian Andersen's name: Hans, Kristoff, Anna and Sven. **Hans from Hans, Kristoff from Christ'ian, Anna from '''An'derson and Sven from Ander'''son. **The name Hans is also commonly used in Norway, Sweden and Denmark; these are the same places that Hans' home might be located in. *In the original fairy tale, The Snow Queen promised Kai a pair of skates if he solved a puzzle for her. As a reference to this, Elsa gives Anna a pair of skates at the end. *Gloves are used as major symbolism throughout the movie, but most noticeably with the characters, Elsa and Hans; both characters wear gloves when attempting to conceal their true selves, and their true identities are revealed when the characters remove their gloves (and Hans goes back into hiding his true self when he puts his gloves back on). *The only time Anna speaks with authority in a serious manner is when she says: "Bring me my horse" and "I leave Prince Hans in charge" and "We leave now. Right now". *The phrase "Hang in there" is used at multiple points in the movie. As seen in the trailer, it is used by Olaf as he is falling to his possible-doom off of a cliff outside Elsa's ice castle, and it is also used inside Arendelle's castle, where it is offered as encouragement by 9-year old Anna to (a painting of) Joan of Arc. Kristoff says "Hang in there" to Anna while they're riding on Sven back to the castle. Elsa also offers similar encouragement to an emperiled Olaf. *''Frozen'' is the second film based on a fairy tale to not be named after the original title, Tangled was the first. *There were many changes in the script StitchKingdom gave on their website in October 2013 before the final one. One example is Kristoff's line, featured in the the first trailer: "You wanna talk about a problem? I sell ice for a living." In the film, he says: "You want to talk about a supply and demand problem? I sell ice for a living." *The words "anymore" and "door" is used as a rhyme in 5 songs, chronologically ordered. **In "Do You Want to Build a Snowman", 5-year old Anna sings: "I never see you anymore, come out the door." **In "For the First Time in Forever", Anna sings: "The window is open, so's that door. I didn't know they did that anymore." **In "Love is an Open Door", Hans and Anna sing: "Say goodbye (say goodbye) to the pain of the past. We don't have to feel it anymore. Love is an open door." **In "Let It Go", Elsa sings: "Let it go, let it go. Can't hold it back anymore. Let it go, let it go. Turn away and slam the door." **In "For the First Time in Forever (Reprise)", Anna sings: "Please don't slam the door, you don't have to keep your distance anymore." *In "For the First Time in Forever (Reprise)", Elsa's line "What do I not know?" sounds very much like the line Cinderella sings in Rodgers and Hammerstein's production: "I do not know that this is so." Santino Fontana, who voices Hans, also plays Prince Topher in the Broadway version. *Only 6 characters, plus the trolls, sing. **Anna sings only 4 times: "Do You Want to Build a Snowman", "For the First Time in Forever", "Love Is An Open Door" and "For the First in Forever (Reprise)". **Elsa sings only three times: "For the First Time in Forever" (She sings a few lines during the song), "Let it Go" and "For the First Time in Forever (Reprise)". **Hans only sings once, which is "Love Is An Open Door". **Kristoff only sings once, which is "Reindeer(s) Are Better Than People". **Olaf only sings once, which is "In Summer". **The trolls only sing once, which is "Fixer Upper". *''Frozen'' marks the third use of ultra widescreen (Super Technirama 70) in a Disney animated film since and Sleeping Beauty and The Black Cauldron. *When Elsa is holding the scepter and orb, the bishop proclaims: "Sem hón heldr inum helgum eignum ok krýnd í þessum helga stað ek té fram fyrir yðr..." In English this means: "As she holds the holy properties, and is crowned in this holy place, I present to you... Queen Elsa of Arendelle". **In the script, it reads: "Sehm hon HELL-drr IN-um HELL-gum AYG-num ok krund ee THES-um HELL- gah STAHTH, ehk teh frahm FUR-ear U- thear..." **The choir's song at Elsa's coronation means this in English: "Worthy queen of greatness, the heart of gold shines, we crown thee with hope, love, and faith; Beautiful, stoney land, home Arendelle; Follow the queen of light." *''Frozen'' is the seventh animated film to reach $300 million, and the third original animated film to reach that milestone. *''Frozen'' is the first animated film from the Walt Disney Animation Studios canon to win the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature. *''Frozen'' became the second animated film to reach $1 billion at the worldwide box office, the first being Disney/Pixar's Toy Story 3. *To celebrate, the movie which came to Digital HD in February 25, 2014 and Blu-Ray Combo Pack at March 16, 2014, Walt Disney Animation Studios organize "Winter Sweepstakes" to win prizes of Frozen merchandise with upload the Winter-Themed photo into a Frozen frame, that can be joined here. *During Olaf's song, his dance with four seagulls is a nod to Bert's dance with four penguins from another Disney movie: Mary Poppins (1964). *There is a plush Mickey Mouse on one of the shelves in Wandering Oaken's Trading Post and Sauna. *When the King pulls the book off the shelf to figure out where to find the trolls, the book is written in Nordic runes, originating from Scandinavia where the film crew drew much inspiration. These runes were the basis for the dwarf-runes used in Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. A map that falls out of the book which resembles the map of the Lonely Mountain seen in The Hobbit. *Over 24 minutes of the film is dedicated to musical sequences. *Olaf's name is a clue to his character's purpose in providing comic relief. It can be interpreted to mean "oh laugh." *There are 3 wood-carved bear figurines on Oaken's Table. *Anna arrives at Oaken's trading post at 10:30 PM (22:30). *One of the paintings in the gallery is based on the painting "The Swing", by the French Rococo artist Jean-Honoré Fragonard, which was used as inspiration for the visual style of Tangled. Goofs *When 5-year-old Anna sings "Do You Want to Build a Snowman?" at the start, Elsa's door has no keyhole or handle. But after we see Anna singing in the Great Hall, she's singing through the keyhole with the handle above her head. *Anna cuts the rope, causing her and Kristoff fall down the mountain while they are still tied together. However, in the next scene the rope is nowhere to be found and they are not tied together. *When Anna and Kristoff are thrown down the stairs by Marshmallow, Anna's hat is missing. Her hat is back on her head in the next shot. *When we first see adult Kristoff and Sven in Arendelle, they are with the sled that Kristoff gets at the end of the movie, not with the sled that Kristoff has when he meets Anna at Oaken's Trading Post and Sauna. *In the climactic scene where Prince Hans confronts Elsa, he is not wearing his sword. The sound of his sword being drawn is heard while Anna is on screen, and when Hans reappears he has his sword in hand but still no scabbard. (Contrast this to the assault on the ice castle where sword and scabbard are clearly visible.) *When Prince Hans is encountering Marshmallow for the first time, the two Gendarmes are tossed against a snow bank after they both fire their crossbows. As they are recovering, they collect themselves and you can see the crossbows on the ground, but no bolts, as one of them spots Elsa running up the stairs. In the next shot a bolt appears under the Gendarmes as he picks it up and chases after the queen. *When Kristoff & Sven have left Anna at the castle and go back to the mountain, they're stepping in the snow (leaving footprints). When the cloud appears over the castle and they return, there are no signs of their footprints. *Anna walks a few feet to put Olaf's head back the right way on his body. After she does this, she is back to the position she started in and Olaf has moved between Anna and Kristoff. *During Elsa's part in the musical number "For the First Time in Forever" she takes off her gloves and grabs a jewelry box and a candlestick in her bare hands in practice for the coronation ceremony. As the two items start to freeze she quickly puts them back again on the furniture and there is frost still visible on them. During the actual coronation, the same thing happens with the orb and scepter she holds in her hands, but when she drops them back on the cushion, they're briefly visible and there's no frost on them. *When Anna and Kristoff are in the sled on the way to the North Mountain, Kristoff asks her, "Didn't your parents ever warn you about strangers?" Anna replies, "Yes, they did." and moves over. The camera then focuses on Kristoff and then both of them. Anna is then shown in her original position. *Before Anna starts singing "For the First Time in Forever (Reprise)" in Elsa's castle, Olaf is present beside her on the staircase. However as she starts ascending the stairs Olaf is nowhere to be seen. *After Olaf's song ("In Summer") Hans hands a bunch of cloaks and warm clothes to a guard back in Arendelle to be given away. After he threatens the Duke of Weselton, Anna's horse returns to the castle and startles the same guard who drops the clothes. The camera then moves to a medium shot of Hans calming down the horse, and then returns to a full shot of Hans, the Duke and some villagers and the clothes the guard dropped disappear for the remainder of the scene. *After Olaf informs Anna and Kristoff about a staircase to Elsa's ice palace, the skin on Anna's leg above her boot is visible as she exclaims her gratefulness. When she falls down and Kristoff catches her, her leg is visible again, this time however in the same aforesaid area her skin is replaced with a stocking. *When Anna is revived towards the end and she and Elsa embrace, Elsa's braid is seen behind her back. However, after the two hug and release, Elsa's braid is now seen running down her left shoulder. *At the end of the movie, while Olaf is ice skating, his "own personal snow flurry" is gone. *When Marshmallow almost knocks Hans off the ice stairs to Elsa's palace, Hans throws his sword back onto the staircase to pull himself up. The sword zooms off the screen as some of Arendelle's guards help Hans up. In the next scene, Hans' sword materializes right next to the foot of one of the guards. *Following the "Do You Want to Build a Snowman?" sequence, the camera follows random guests as the audience is enlightened on the events that are about to take place. Right before Kristoff's and Sven's appearance, the bridge to the castle is seen with a few people venturing to it. When the Duke of Weselton makes his first cameo, the bridge is now populated with numerous guests. In particular, a man wearing a dark blue jacket can be seen at the screen's edge, walking behind another female guest in a cyan dress. As the camera pans towards the Duke and his bodyguards more closely, the shadows of the nearest guests crossing the bridge disappear. When the foreign dignitaries begin conversing with one another, the aforementioned man and company are supplanted with another completely new set of eager guests: the aforementioned couple is now a man in a black suit in front of a young woman in a purple dress. *Towards the end of the film, Elsa is about to create an ice rink for the people of Arendelle. Right before she does, Kai, a woman, and other individuals are seen clapping with encouragement. A scene later, right before Elsa stomps the ground beneath her, the crowd mentioned before is different; only Kai and the woman remain. *When Anna is shown sleeping in a comical manner, drool is visible down the right side of her mouth. As someone calls her name, she pulls herself into a sitting posture. She visibly does not wipe her face at all; however after turning her head for a brief moment, her drool vanishes. *Right before Elsa unleashes her ice powers in front of a completely ignorant audience, a woman in a purple dress in the foreground behind Anna is seen with hands down and close to each other. In the next scene where Anna exclaims "What are you so afraid of?" the same woman from before now has her hands up in a defensive position. *In the same aforesaid scene, before Elsa reveals her cryokinetic abilities, Anna is the only person within a certain distance of Elsa. After Elsa reveals her powers, the Duke of Weselton, his bodyguards and Hans appear out of nowhere alongside Anna. *Before Elsa freezes the fountain after her powers are revealed, a tall slender man bows to her when she comes within range. He clearly is standing in front of the fountain. After a woman asks Elsa whether she is alright, the man is revealed to now be behind the fountain. *After the aforementioned events, Elsa looks at two clusters of people before running away from Arendelle. The last cluster consists of possibly a small family with a father, a mother, and three daughters of varing ages. The scene immediately after reveals Elsa to be looking in the same direction as before, which is towards the "family," but now the "family" is gone and replaced with other people. Gallery Trailers and clips Disney's Frozen Teaser Trailer Disney's Frozen "First Time in Forever" Trailer Frozen - Clip "No Heat Experience"|Clip "No Heat Experience" Frozen - Kristen Bell Interview|Kristen Bell Interview Frozen - Clip "Wolf Chase"|Clip "Wolf Chase" Frozen - Clip "Party Is Over"|Clip "Party Is Over" Frozen - Olaf's Summer Song|Olaf's Summer Song Frozen - Cast & Crew Interviews|Cast & Crew Interviews Frozen - "Big Summer Blowout" Clip|"Big Summer Blowout" Clip Elsa, from Frozen HD (720p)|Elsa's Magic Elsa from Disney's Frozen - Powers Revealed|Powers Unleashed Elsa from Disney's Frozen - Powers Unleashed with background|Powers Unleashed with background Disney's Frozen - Snowball Fight|Snowball Fight Disney's Frozen A Wave into the Weekend|A Wave into the Weekend Disney's Frozen - Olaf Nose Bump|Olaf Nose Bump Disney's Frozen - A Cold Weather Lesson from Sven|A Cold Weather Lesson from Sven Disney's Frozen - Olaf's Dance|Olaf's Dance Frozen - "That Happened" Clip|"That Happened" Clip Frozen - "Let It Go" Extended Clip|"Let It Go" Extended Clip Frozen - Bonus Clip "Meet Kristoff" Deleted Scene Edit|"Meet Kristoff" Deleted Scene Edit Frozen Bonus Clip - The Making Of The Making Of Frozen|The Making Of Frozen Frozen - 'The Dressing Room' Bonus Clip|'The Dressing Room' Bonus Clip Frozen - Original Theme and Art Bonus Clip|Original Theme and Art Bonus Clip Frozen - "Love Is An Open Door"|"Love Is An Open Door" Disney's Frozen - On Digital HD Now and Blu-ray Mar 18|Disney's Frozen Blu-ray ad Frozen_-_Cool_Trivia|Frozen - Cool Trivia External Links *Frozen Disney | Movies *Frozen User Reviews on Votable * *FROZEN on Stage *Frozen on Wikipedia *Frozen on IMDb *Frozen on Rotten Tomatoes *Disney Frozen's Official Facebook *Disney Frozen's Official Google+ *Disney Frozen's on Pinterest References Category:Disney animated features canon Category:2013 Films Category:Films Category:Frozen Category:Animated films Category:3-D films Category:Disney Princess Films Category:Disney films Category:Films based on books Category:Annie Award for Best Animated Feature Category:Billion dollar films Category:Academy Award winning films Category:Disney Revival Category:Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards winners